CONTENTS 1 Acknowledgement of Country 2 Introduction 3 The Altitude Team 4-6 Essay - Dr Ann Finegan 7-10 Observatory Latitude 33° 42’ South Longitude 150° 29” East, Linden Observatory 11-15 Altitude - The Aviators, Kingsford Smith Memorial Park 16-19 Altitude - The Aviators, Melrose Park 21-22 Michaela Gleave with Amanda Cole and Warren Armstrong 23-24 Michael Petchkovsky 25-26 Graham Davis-King 27-28 Brad Allen-Waters with Jon Drummond 29 Brad Allen-Waters 30-31 Gail Priest The Altitude Project is supported by the NSW Government through 32-33 Chris Caines Create NSW 34-35 Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig 36-37 Solange Kershaw and Damian Castaldi ISBN:978-0-6483350-0-9 38-39 Jacquelene Drinkall Publication date 20 May 2018 40-41 The History of the Sites 42-43 David Brazil - Emerging Artist in Residence © Miriam Williamson and Mahalya Middlemist 2018 44 Thank you

The Altitude Team Miriam Williamson, Mahalya Middlemist, Caroline Wilde. www.thealtitudeproject.com www.vimeo.com/thealtitudeprojectbm

The Altitude Project logo and branding design, image page 43 - Racket https://racket.net.au

Catalogue layout - Caroline Wilde The organisers acknowledge that The Altitude Project took place on the traditional lands of the Darug and Gundungurra peoples and pay our respect to the Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that our events were held on Aboriginal land and recognise their continuing connection to land, water and community.

Chris Tobin performs a Smoking Ceremony 1 INTRODUCTION At Kingsford Smith Memorial Park, Katoomba we continued the project shifting our focus to the early celebrity aviators of the 1930’s and 40’s after Our vision for The Altitude Project encompassed the themes of aviation and whom the parks were named. We invited artists to consider the aviatrix Amy astronomy, drawing on histories of individual endeavour and the use of Johnson who, unlike her male counterparts, did not have a local park named technology to reach the skies throughout the 1920s-40s. A contemporary art to memorialises her achievements as a plot and as the first woman to fly project, The Altitude Project was held on three historically significant, yet solo to Australia. under-utilised, sites across the sandstone ridges of the high altitude World Heritage Area of the Blue Mountains NSW: Linden Observatory, Kingsford Our final event was at Melrose Park, North Katoomba where four selected Smith Memorial Park and Melrose Park. Linden Observatory was built by Ken artworks from the previous two events were reconfigured to target an Beames, the only amateur telescope-maker in Australia in the 1940s, while audience of youth and families. In addition to the art installations and the two parks were named after celebrity aviators, Charles Kingsford Smith performances, we invited a youth parkour and acrobatic group to run a and Jimmy Melrose. parkour workshop and give performances.

As curators we invited the artists to produce site-specific works in response We worked closely with the Blue Mountains City Council and with to the histories, technologies and the science behind early aviation and community organisations to build new audiences for contemporary art and night-sky watching. It was rewarding to work with such high calibre artists, engage with youth, particularly at-risk youth from the local area. who were each able to respond to the nature of the sites, in their respective ways, with a variety of conceptually innovative works. We would like to thank all of our supporters, our funders, the local community and in particular the artists for their enduring enthusiasm and Eleven contemporary artists exhibited Zartworks across the three sites, commitment to the project. utilising a range of media including two newly composed, live sound art Mahalya Middlemist & Miriam Williamson - Curators performances by Chris Caines and Gail Priest; a sculpture, sand drawing and performance work by Graham Davis-King; a kinetic laser sculpture by Brad Allen-Waters in collaboration with a sound composition by Jon Drummond; an interactive 4 channel sound installation by Solange Kershaw and Damian Castaldi; a work utilising sensors and real-time processing to produce manipulated reality by Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig; a multi-layered work involving a seance performance, video, sculpture and installation by Jacquelene Drinkall and a networked LED installation by Michael Petchkovsky. In addition, we invited an emerging local artist, David Brazil to undertake a residency and exhibit the resulting work alongside the professional artists at two of the venues.

At Linden Observatory the theme of altitude was connected to the site’s recent history as an observatory, on the one hand, and its pre-colonial use by Aboriginal people, on the other. Many artists responded to the built-environment, the legacy of Ken Beames’ who, in his determined quest to view the stars, mined the sand on the site to make telescope lenses and built his own observatory, telescope, planetarium and workshops.

2 THE ALTITUDE TEAM Miriam Williamson is a sound and visual artist. Her work explores the Caroline Wilde is one of the small team of organisers for The Altitude themes: sense of place, familial ties and historical displacement. In addition Project. Caroline’s own practice is based in the craft of weaving that to her practice Miriam is an experienced arts administrator and specialist in incorporates found objects, industrial materials and technology. She weaves community based arts events. in the Saori method, which encourages freedom and creativity in weaving and sees irregularity as "the beauty with lack of intentions created by our She is Director of The SLAB, an Artist Run Initiative in Hazelbrook NSW and natural creativity”. She has exhibited work in Modern Art Project’s Magenta, Cultural Officer of Linden Observatory. Recent works include Bag Hut in North - West and The Club Edition and recently in the artist run initiative Cementa 17, and Seeds of Empire, Explorers: Narratives of Site (MAPBM The SLAB’s Postcards from Laika. 2017) at the Woodford Academy. Miriam is the recipient of an Aria Award for her collaboration with techno duo Itch-e and Scratch-e on dance track She runs her own business as an interior and graphic designer and has a Sweetness and Light and has received funding for projects from the background in architectural drafting. Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW and the Blue Mountains City Council City of the Arts Trust. Caroline was previously a member of the executive of the Blue Mountains Makers Association where she organised and curated artisan markets, and a http://theslab.net.au member of the executive of Modern Art Projects Board (MAP) where she was involved in the organisation of a number of contemporary art projects.

Mahalya Middlemist has been a practicing professional artist and filmmaker for over thirty years, producing a range of screen-based works and installations. Her current research explores the connections between landscape, biography and memory. Her recent curatorial practice focusses on working with emerging and re-emerging artists, drawing on her extensive experience mentoring emerging artists during her previous career as an Academic at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney.

Concurrent with her role as Curator on The Altitude Project, Middlemist was Co-Curator of Explorers: Narratives of Site (MAPBM 2017) an exhibition of 15 contemporary visual artists at the historic Woodford Academy in the Blue Mountains.

Her work has been in many festivals, galleries and broadcasts both in Australia and internationally. The production of her work has been supported through grants including from Create NSW, Screen Australia and The Australia Council for the Arts.

3 Dr Ann Finegan reflects on the first two of use by indigenous peoples. events of The Altitude Project: For The Altitude Project Wiradjuri and Ngiyampaa artist and activist, Graham Davis-King was invited to reactivate the indigenous relationship to the site, presenting a conversation and performance piece in which he staked out an THE ALTITUDE PROJECT Aboriginal astronomical star chart on the rocky ground adjacent to the observatory. This sophisticated traditional knowledge system can map the For The Altitude Project curators Miriam Williamson and Mahalya Middlemist exact time and place of the seasons through charting the progress of the have conceptually taken to the skies, engaging a group of sound and ‘dark emu’ and other dark sky formations within the constellations against installation artists to explore the notion of ‘altitude’ in many permutations local geological formations. Some seven months earlier, at Cementa_17 over a number of remarkable, if somewhat undervalued, Blue Mountains Contemporary Arts Festival, Davis-King had similarly traced the trajectory of locations: Linden Observatory, Kingsford-Smith Memorial Park and Melrose the ‘dark emu’, its head only just appearing in the night skies, in a large sand Park. In restoring cultural value to these quieter, somewhat hidden, and more drawing. At the time of The Altitude Project, the body would be more fully discreet sites and histories, The Altitude Project takes a turn from the in view. dominant master narratives of tourism and its major sites, Scenic World and the Three Sisters. As such, The Altitude Project could be said to embrace A Galaxy of Suns, by Michaela Gleave, in collaboration with Warren what Deleuze and Guattari have described as ‘minor literatures’: Armstrong and Amanda Cole, complemented Davis-King’s performance- artist-activated narratives that eschew the familiar discourses of the installation with a unique cinematic soundscape that directly responds to majority to explore radical potentials and creative becomings of alternative the site and the constellations overhead. This is achieved through a sites. complex data-gathering interface that maps sonic elements onto a computer generated astronomical chart based on exact geographical locations. The Observatory Latitude 33 42’ Longitude 150 29” East resulting sound score thus intimately connects time and place through a Linden Observatory, Linden , NSW relationship to the stars. Saturday 4th November 2017 Homage to the pioneering engineering of the observatory’s founder, Ken In the first instance, the key word ‘altitude’ solicits attention to the Beames, was paid in the form of a sound and light installation-performance geological distinction of height that sets the Blue Mountains apart from the in the observatory workshop. The design of Brad Allen-Water’s kinetic lowlands of the Sydney basin. Linden Observatory, ripe with creative sculpture, The Aesthetiscope, embraces engineering elements from the potential, and tucked away at the end of a long suburban street petering out telescope’s construction and also employs analogue electro mechanics of at the edge of a promontory, was the inspirational site for the first event of the era to produce spectacular optical displays based on astronomical data. The Altitude Project. Established by Ken Beames in the 1940s, the little The Jon Drummond score draws on Ken Beames’ biography and the story known complex of telescope, workshop and unfinished planetarium was told by Linden Observatory Trust member, Ian Bridges, of the local lyre birds being managed by a small group of local enthusiasts, the Linden who were the original electro-industrial sound samplers, incorporating the Observatory Trust, who were keen to conserve the working observatory with alien clickings and whirrings of the observatory’s telescope into their songs. its rich local history of suburban engineering and amateur astronomical observation. In 2010, the Linden Observatory Trust managed to obtain NSW Michael Petchkovsky’s networked LED array represents the chatter of stars State Heritage status and was keen to open the site to a broader public and the dances of fireflies. He imagines the staccato strobing of the lights appreciative of its history of research and technological innovation. Further as the stars talking amongst themselves. Strung out through a fringe of study of the site revealed evidence of tools suggestive of thousands of years trees bordering the observatory site, the array could also be imagined as a

4 mode of visual Morse code. Designed to self-evolve through feedback loops, Also in her honour, Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig stake out their eventually building to a series of motifs and repeating codes, could these installation, The Amy Johnson Flight School, between the wings of a replica patterns of light not also be sending out signals that may attract the of her Gypsy Moth. Audience members can participate in a series of training attention of whatever or whoever is out there in the further reaches of deep sessions in preparation for a simulated ‘experience’ of flight realised through space? donning a VR-like headset that inverts the view of the park. Like early flight, this experience is designed to be bodily disorientating, and makes for a Altitude - The Aviators challenging negotiation of the park’s geography. Imagine the paradox of feeling yourself to be walking on earth while your eyes are telling you your Kingsford Smith Memorial Park, Katoomba NSW feet are in the sky. Saturday 17th February 2018 Jacqueline Drinkall’s installation is best approached from the walk down The second event, The Aviators, takes its title from the celebrity aviators from the Kingsford Smith memorial gate. Winding down through a series of associated with the Blue Mountains region, rather than the location at which steep forking paths under a dense canopy of conifers and tree ferns you it is staged. This keeps the attention focused on the sky. The Altitude come out on the rim of the park, the former Katoomba quarry. You are Project has effectively come down from the stars to a narrower band of surprisingly high up. Looking down, the park takes the form of a very large altitude more closely associated with earth. As with Linden Observatory bite a giant has taken out of the mountain; the people on the lawn are at the this is a multiform event celebrating invention, innovation, engineering and scale of dots and the orange and white segments of Drinkall’s USA air technology through sound, performance and installation. force-issued parachute is spread out like a military target or an over-sized dartboard. Viewing her installation from this vantage point, you occupy an Again, in keeping with the radical lines of Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of aviator’s perspective, or that of a passenger looking out the window of a minor literature, dominant narratives are displaced in favour of those of plane coming in to land. women, minorities and other becomings. Though the town of Katoomba has chosen to dedicate a park and a massive memorial gate, topped with a On the ground, the work, titled (UFO.20 x N2O) + (USA C9 + USSR T4) = replica plane, to aviator, Charles Kingsford Smith, there is no such monument Séance for Pioneers of Psi, Sky and Climate Change, invites the audience to to honour female aviator, Amy Johnson, who, among many notable participate in a series of séances channeling the spirits of Amy Johnson, psi achievements, was the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia. researchers, and pilot and engineer, Jack Drinkall, the artist’s grandfather. Hence, several artists of The Aviators have chosen to bypass Kingsford Drinkall’s entry on The Altitude Project website references a documented Smith and commemorate Amy Johnson instead. 1970 séance by spirit medium, Leslie Flint, who reports that Amy’ spirit said she no longer needs airplanes in the afterlife: http://www.leslief- Artist-duo, Solange Kershaw and Damian Castaldi, celebrate her in a series lint.com/amy-johnson of sound installations that integrate recordings of her public speeches into contemporary beats fused with thirties jazz. In her crisp, and somewhat Throughout the séances, conducted on giant screen-printed ouja boards delicate British accent (rather like the affected modulations of HRH) Amy that doubled as picnic blankets, Drinkall performs in a costume that is part Johnson can be heard extolling the warmth and generosity of her Australian aviator, part female clown. Wearing a silver aviator cap, and orange and reception from listening points around the park. A body of correspondence white striped stockings to match her USA issue parachute, she has had on a scheduled Katoomba trip consolidates her association with the Blue shots of Nitrous Oxide, in silver plastic tubes, sewn into transparent panels Mountains, even though, sadly, she tragically died before she could realize on her skirt. A potent and harmful greenhouse gas, Nitrous Oxide has her visit. Nonetheless, she remains a remarkable and inspiring icon of famously been used in dentistry (and numerous comedy sketches) as celebrity aviation. laughing gas, and is also an enhancer of automobile and aeronautical engine

5 performance.

At dusk Michael Petchkovsky’s LED array, Beacons Hither and Nigh, make a return appearance that links the Linden Observatory event with the present. In this altered context the light pulses from Petchkovsky’s array appear to synch up with the tonal sounds performed by Broken Chip. These are eerily reminiscent of the score of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

For the finale of the event, field recordings from the Upper Blue Mountains are live mixed with the sounds of industrial aviation in Gail Priest’s two sound performance pieces, On a Wing and Orographic Lift. Supplemented in part by ethereal vocals from Priest, her subtle and layered performance in two parts bookends a more strident live-mixed performance by Chris Caines that is based on a sampling of noise prints of solar winds. Titled The Carrington Event, the piece is loosely based on solar cycles with dramatic reference to an 1859 geomagnetic solar storm whose effects were so fierce that telegraph wires on earth melted and the aurora of the Northern Lights temporarily shifted south such that it could be viewed from the equator.

Following the performances of Priest and Caines, with the park sufficiently shrouded in darkness, Brad Allen-Waters’ Tides of Entropy is a fitting coda to The Aviators. In this short-duration event, particulate matter is effectively ‘charged up’ to perform itself. With the work consisting of a laser sending highly charged particles flying through vector fields of water molecules, the duration is therefore determined by the strength and discharge time of the laser. In this spectacular and fleeting work you watch the light hitting the interface medium and hear light as becoming-sound. If other installations of The Aviators address the science of flight in multiple and unanticipated permutations, this work stretches the imagination even further in reproducing the particulate activity of the stratosphere on earth.

Dr Ann Finegan

6 OBSERVATORY LATITUDE 33° 42’ SOUTH LONGITUDE 150° 29” EAST Linden Observatory, Linden , NSW Saturday 4th November 2017

ARTISTS Michaela Gleave with Amanda Cole and Warren Armstrong A Galaxy of Suns

Michael Petchkovsky Beacons Hither and Nigh

Graham Davis-King Night Sky in Summer

Brad Allen-Waters with Jon Drummond Aesthetiscope, Lyre Lyre

7 Observatory Latitude 33° 42’ South Longitude 150° 29” East is the first exhibition of contemporary artworks to be installed on the heritage site of the Linden Observatory and the inaugural exhibition of The Altitude Project. The legacy of Ken Beames, who built all of the architecture and technology on the site, in his quest to view the night sky, the site is the venue for four artworks that are situated at the intersection of science, art and cultural history.

With its history of technological innovation, human endeavour, and night sky watching the observatory is located on the traditional lands of the Darug and Gundungurra people. Stories of Aboriginal tools found on the site give a tantalising glimpse into its pre-colonial history and underline the importance of this heritage site for the community.

8 9 10 ALTITUDE - THE AVIATORS Kingsford Smith Memorial Park, Katoomba NSW Saturday 17th February 2018

ARTISTS Gail Priest On a Wing and Orographic Lift

Chris Caines The Carrington Event

Rachel Peachey & Paul Mosig The Amy Johnson Flight School

Solange Kershaw and Damian Castaldi 8662

Jacquelene Drinkall (UFO2.0 x N2O) + (USA C9 + USSR T4) = Séance for Pioneers of Psi, Sky and Climate Change

Michael Petchkovsky Beacons Hither and Nigh

Brad Allen-Waters Tides of Entropy

11 As the community divides over the proposed second Sydney airport and the impact of aircraft noise on this World Heritage Area, The Altitude Project looked to the skies and draws on the community’s past relationship with the celebrity aviators of the early 20th Century and the public parks dedicated to them to hold multi-artform events in Kingsford Smith and Melrose Parks in February 2018. Altitude - The Aviators was a two day event across two parks in Katoomba Blue Mountains.

12 13 14 15 ALTITUDE - THE AVIATORS Melrose Park Katoomba, NSW Sunday 18th February 2018

At our final event in Melrose Park, North Katoomba, we invited three of the artists from the previous events: Graham Davis-King and Solange Kershaw and Damian Castaldi to reconfigure works for this site. In addition, our emerging artist in residence, David Brazil, exhibited his multimedia work Circa and performing artists Dauntless Movement Crew gave parkour and acrobatic performances and a performance workshop for young people.

Wiradjuri and Ngiyaampa artist, Graham Davis-King, reconfigured the work that he had shown at Linden Observatory, Night Sky in Summer, as a daytime work and engaged the predominantly youth audience in conversation, didgeridoo performances and storytelling around his sand drawing. Artists Solange Kershaw and Damian Castaldi installed their interactive 4 channel sound installation 8662 around the periphery of the park.

For this final event, the Altitude Project joined forces with Katoomba Neighbourhood Centre and local community groups to engage younger people and families.

ARTISTS Graham Davis-King Night Sky in Summer

Solange Kershaw and Damian Castaldi 8662

David Brazil Circa Emerging Artist in Residence

Dauntless Movement Crew (DMC) Parkour and Acrobatics performance and Workshop

16 17 18 19 THE ARTISTS MICHAELA GLEAVE WITH AMANDA COLE AND WARREN ARMSTRONG A Galaxy of Suns

Operating on a galactic scale this project is a collaboration across contemporary art, music, astronomy and design. In an installation unique to the Linden Observatory, A Galaxy of Suns played the stars as they passed across the sky immersing audiences in a field of sound.

A Galaxy of Suns is a digital sound and performance project that ‘plays’ the stars as they rise and set over 360˚ of the horizon – for any location on Earth. Tracking the Earth’s motions through space, A Galaxy of Suns documents in real-time the audience’s precise position in relation to the stars, sonifying stellar data to create a composition unique to their location in space and time. Using GPS data, the project takes parameters such as location on the horizon, brightness, size, age and chemical composition of stars, and translates them into aesthetic variables including rhythm, pitch, volume, panning and timbre.

21 22 MICHAEL PETCHKOVSKY Beacons Hither and Nigh

Observing where we stand, looking to the sky locates us in time and place. This work imagined a cluster of stars drawn near. Like fireflies, like wandering stars, signaling passage through time. The patterning and staccato strobe of an array of networked LED light elements speaks of instants, moments strung together into stories of shared experience in place and across longer time periods. As these LED beacons relayed information between one another we may wonder, what do the stars make of the earth as they visit here in the form of light reaching our planet? Their chatter and songs mix with our own, bounce off the land and return to the sky carrying a record of their visit here, and carrying their gleanings of our stories with them.

23 24 GRAHAM DAVIS-KING Night Sky in Summer

This work shows the position of Aboriginal constellations in summer time. The artwork is in alignment with the constellation at sunset and then throughout the night-time.

Aboriginal people across Australia relate to each other through Aboriginal kinship law which teaches us about who we are through our totems in the sky. The constellations tell us about what time it is, the time of year ( the Aboriginal seasons) and what bush tucker is in season. Hopefully the wider community can develop relationship with Aboriginal culture through my work as part of The Altitude Project at Ken Beames’ Observatory site.

25 26 BRAD ALLEN-WATERS WITH JON DRUMMOND Aesthetiscope, Lyre Lyre

Brad Allen-Waters’ laser driven kinetic sculptures are tools for the exploration and expression of the oscillations that drive and keep life in time, from the astronomical to the molecular.

The Aesthetiscope, a telescopic, kinetic laser projecting complex refractive optics and spinning orbs against the dormant drive shaft of Ken Beames’ unfinished planetarium. The mechanised lenses spin and move along a rail, changing focal length to create a morphing geometric field of light that triggers Jon Drummond’s array of light driven nebula phones positioned behind a projection screen producing a synchronous sound scape against the planetary echoes the light field. Oscillating light driving oscillating sound just as the tools in the onsite workshop that produced the parts for the planetarium triggered the lyre birds’ mimicry, echoing the process through time.

27 28 BRAD ALLEN-WATERS Tides of Entrophy

A hydro kinetic laser light-to-sound installation. This work taps into the oscillations of water molecules, the time keepers of cicadian rhythms, water molecules have an excitation period lasting 18.8 minutes, within this period there are four predictable maximising oscillations. The installation’s laser projects against a thin film of water molecules in a glass glove. The reflected beam is collected in a large lens as focussed onto a wood and wire sculptural screen, the resulting image resembles both radar and oscilloscope as the interacting molecules create pulsating vectorfields of moving moray patterns which trigger light activated tone generating oscillators creating a mesmeric journey through this molecular life cycle.

29 GAIL PRIEST On a Wing and Orographic Lift

For The Altitude Project Gail created two twenty minute compositions for live performance that drew upon field recordings of the upper Blue Mountains area combined with industrial sounds of historic and contemporary aviation. Through this Gail wove live processed vocals to create a multifaceted composition that explores the interaction between the figurative and the abstract, the machinic and the organic, the sensual and the brutal.

30 31 CHRIS CAINES The Carrington Event

Chris performed a new forty-five minute composition based around the phenomenon of solar storms. Focusing in particular the collision of the earth in 1859 with a coronal mass ejection. A geomagnetic storm that caused telegraph systems to catch on fire and aurora to reach the equator. It has come to be known as The Carrington Event.

Using noise prints from solar winds and compositional structures based around eleven and twenty two year solar cycles it also explores the idea of the Sun as the most primal and fundamental object humans experience “up there” a focus of worship, fear and awe.

32 33 RACHEL PEACHEY & PAUL MOSIG The Amy Johnson Flight School

The Amy Johnson Flight School offered the curious an opportunity to engage the senses as took take a break from normal operating procedure. Students went through a series of rituals before using sensors and real time processing to explore Kingsford Smith Park through a manipulated reality.

The school asked its students to reassess their relationship to vertical space by confounding and amplifying the usual sensory reactions to the landscape. Though this practice they were able to pursue a deeper understanding of the irreversible shift in perspective that the achievement of human flight has given us.

34 35 SOLANGE KERSHAW & DAMIAN CASTALDI 8662

8662 is an interactive 4 channel sound installation commemorating the life of the celebrated English female pilot Amy Johnson who, at the time of conferring memorial parks on other historic aviators in Katoomba was overlooked.

This installation celebrated Amy’s life in the soundtracks composed of and designed from processed location sound recordings, archival recordings of Amy speaking, for example describing her England to Australia solo flight on the 5th to the 28th of May 1930 and original music and sound design. Two old time songs written and recorded about Amy and performed by Jack Lumsdaine and Bob Molyneux in 1930 titled “Johnnie, Our Aeroplane Girl” and “Just Plain Johnnie” have also inspired the work.

The soundtracks were mounted on stands and placed into the ground standing upright in four separate locations along the embankment as you walk down the hill into the Kingsford Smith park from the south side. Passers by triggered the individual soundtracks as they moved within close proximity to the each of the 8662 stands and had the option of listening to the work through outdoor speakers or headphones available on one of the stands. The title of the work comes from Amy Johnson’s Aviator's certificate, No. 8662.

Technically the sound installations incorporate Maxbotix Ultrasonic range finders, Arduino Uno R3 micro controllers, 16 GB Micro SD Cards, Adafruit Wave shields V 1.1, Adafruit Lithium Ion battery packs, 2.5W Class D Amps, various cabling, ABS waterproof enclosures, headphones and 5” active outdoor mono speakers.

36 37 JACQUELENE DRINKALL hundred times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide, even though carbon dioxide represents 75% of greenhouse gases. This is (UFO.20 x N2O) + (USA C9 + USSR T4) = Séance for because one tonne of N2O is equivalent to 298 tonnes of carbon dioxide, Pioneers of Psi, Sky and Climate Change N2O takes 110 years to be removed from the atmosphere, and when it is Jacquelene’s work combined research into pioneering airplane engineers removed it depletes the ozone layer. Philosopher, psychologist and Amy Johnson and Jack Drinkall, as well Nitrous Oxide, Telepathy and psychical researcher William James had significant mystical and spiritual Climate change. It combined the stories of Amy and Jack with orange experiences of telepathy under the influence of N20 that provided and white USA C9 and USSR T4 parachutes, UFO fragments and pioneering insights into modern work on cognition, consciousness and crash-scene emergency blankets. A group Ouija séance was initiated to psychical research and greatly informed his book The Varieties of Religious pull signals out of the air regarding fossil fuels (comprised from dead Experience. plants and animals) as well as departed pioneers. Further, it incorporated Jack Clarence Drinkall started a lifetime of work for Qantas at age research into Nitrous Oxide (N20) as an accelerant not only of engine eighteen as an Aircraft Engineer in 1937, having worked many years as a performance, and N2O as faciltator of anaestheticised telepathic teen apprentice. In 1947, six years after Amy Johnson disappeared in 1941, experiences, but N2O is also a key ingredient of human greenhouse gas he was elected as an Associate of The Institution of Automative and acceleration of global climate change. Aeronautical Engineers. Jack and ground crew at Perth airport were once witness to three UFOs flying at 1600 knots per hour passing speed at Jacquelene combined elements of her ongoing Weatherman UFOlogy Perth airport, and they duly recorded this anomaly to airspace officials. project with research into the life, death and life-after-life of Amy Jack continued flying as usual and did not see nor report any other Johnson. Amy Johnson disappeared during a fateful and unauthorized anomaly in his lifetime. airplane flight during bad weather with a broken compass. Amy leapt from her failing plane with a parachute and was last seen waving to This work is part of ongoing installments of Jacquelene’s Weatherman rescuers in the freezing waters of the Thames River within five feet of the UFOlogy project. The telepathic message is that we are all pioneers of Navy rescue ship that promptly attended to her rescue. The propeller of climate change. the rescue boat was put in reverse to avoid a sand bar and it is now considered possible, if not likely, that she was sucked into the ship’s propeller. Amy disappeared without a trace and her body was not recovered and the ship’s captain also died from hypothermia the next day, having himself leapt into the freezing waters in a futile attempt to locate her disappeared body. In a séance conducted with spirit medium Leslie Flint in 1970, Amy Johnson declares her fascination with human advances in space travel and relates her love of air flight to her interest in Spiritual- ism. She says she no longer needs airplanes in the afterlife: http://ww- w.leslieflint.com/amy-johnson Nitrous Oxide (N20) is sometimes used to enhance automotive and aeronautical engine performance, made famous in spectacular WW2 Nazi airplane superheroics and disasters, and in Mad Max mythology. N20 is also the anaesthetic known as ‘laughing gas’ and it is a greenhouse gas that is accelerating climate change to dangerous levels via human agricultural use of ammonia in nitrogen-based fertilizers. N2O is three

38 39 THE HISTORY OF THE SITES Aviator Parks In Katoomba are three memorial parks named in honour of the pioneering Linden Observatory aviators of the 1930’s, celebrities of their time. At the height of the jazz As you drive through the Woodford bends, on a steep curve stands a era, Katoomba with its art deco streetscape, cool climate gardens and small green and white sign pointing to Linden Observatory, a site often grand panoramas was a popular holiday destination attracting both overlooked due to its remote location on a rocky outcrop to the North of national and international tourists. Australian aviators Bert Hinkler, John Linden village. Melrose and British aviatrix Amy Johnson (the first woman to fly solo from Established in the 1940’s, the observatory is the legacy of renowned Britain to Australia) visited the mountains during this era to rapturous amateur astronomer Ken Beames, who drew on his engineering acclaim. background and his technical skills in crafting optical lens, to build a dark Kingsford Smith park was originally the quarry for the sandstone used to sky haven away from the city lights for night sky viewing. build the Carrington Hotel. Built with depression era labour, the park is The site contains a dome housing a 61cm reflecting telescope and a partly landscaped with dry stone walls and pathways creating an amphitheatre complete planetarium, all their components machined on site by Beames setting landscaped with cool climate trees. At one end is the historic including grinding sand for the optics. sound shell stage, once a popular venue for community concerts and When Ken Beames died in 1989, he left the observatory and surrounding performance. In recent decades the park has fallen into disrepair and land in perpetuity as an educational resource on astronomy administered anti-social behaviour has reduced its use, however it is still valued by the by the Linden Observatory Trust. community for its unique character and cultural significance. The Altitude In January 2010, the observatory was place on the NSW State Heritage Project chose the park as a venue for contemporary art with the aim to Register, in recognition of Ken Beames endeavour and contribution to reinvigorate interest in this unique public space and promote its use. amateur astronomy. Melrose Park is a large open field and a CASA registered flight space used until recently as a helicopter landing site. For more information visit: http://www.lindenobservatory.com.au/index.php For more information on the pioneering aviators and the parks memorialising them visit: http://bmlocalstudies.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/aviators-and-blue-mountains.html

Ken Beames in the dome at Linden Observatory Amy Johnson (c. 1930) Altitude artist Jacquelene Drinkall 40 Kingsford Smith Memorial Park Katoomba (c. 1940) 41 DAVID BRAZIL Circa (multimedia installation) 2018 Emerging Artist in Residence In November 1935 Charles Kingsford Smith and his co-pilot disappeared on board the Southern Cross while attempting to break the England-Aus- tralia speed record. Six months later my Uncle David died of leukaemia. He was seven years old. This loss of their only son devastated my grandparents and sent ripples through the family, affecting every member in different ways. xx

In 1943 my grandmother would take on the role of the proprietress of the Sans Souci Guest House, an imposing brick pile sitting above the Kingsford Smith Memorial Park in Katoomba. It was there, as part of her grieving process that she wrote the story of David’s life in prose and verse. I imagine her looking out over the park, watching the children playing below imagining the childhood he never had.

“Doomed to know not winter, only Spring, He filled our home with laughter for a while Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing Came and stayed and went, nor even ceased to smile.”

15 years ago I too moved to Katoomba and found myself living directly opposite the Sans Souci on the other side of the Park. Kingsford Smith Park had somehow been woven into the narrative thread of our family.

There are many stories and characters - a “criminal book keeper”, a magical well at the bottom of the garden, and though it all an absence of this little boy who disappeared from our lives as mysteriously as Smithy vanished into the clouds above the Andaman Sea.

Circa combines found historical images, family photos and artefacts, journal extracts, drone footage, original photography and VR imaging. It is not concerned with historical accuracy or detailed biography, but uses this location to create a work starting from my family’s complex legacy and exploring tangentially to embrace broader themes of loss and absence, death and profound love. Circles within circles, drawing you in and expanding outwards.

42 43 THANK YOU The Altitude Project team would like to acknowledge the following for their support, contribution, and enthusiasm for the project:

Trish Doyle, NSW Member for the Blue Mountains; Kath Harrison, Josie Vendramini, Barbara Cuthbert, Len Kaspar, Ruth Bennett and Neil Smith at Katoomba Neighbour- hood Centre Inc.; Ian Bridges and Ray Stathakis from Linden Observatory Trust; The Local History Studies Group; Meredith Brownhill and Vera Costello from Friends of Melrose Park; Joe Carbonne and The Dauntless Movement Crew; Katoomba/Leura Rural Fire Brigade; South Katoomba Rural Fire Brigade; Katoomba North Public School; Woodford Academy; Councillors Don McGregor and Romola Hollywood; Blue Mountains City Council staff: Andy Turner, Wendy Dollin, Lin Mountstephen and the landscaping and gardening team for their preparation of Kingsford Smith Park; the Metropole Hotel, Katoomba; Paul Innis of Blue Mountain’s History Tours; Ann Finegan; David Haines; Billy Gruner; Joyce Hinterding; Sarah Keighery; Charlie Komsic; Emma Rooney; Jacqueline Spedding; Fleur MacDonald; Chris Tobin; Gianni Wise; Mary Travers; Amanda Hunt; Fiona Davis; Lorna McKenzie; Kalyani Saint.

Photo credits page 1, 6-10, 22-28, 42-43 - David Brazil page 2, 11, 17, 19, 21 - Caroline Wilde page 12-15, 29-33, 36-39 - Alex Wisser page 16 - David Ryan page 18 - Damian Castaldi page 34- 35 - Ona Janzen page 40 - (L) Source - Linden Observatory Trust, (C) British aviatrix Amy Johnson Source http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=9732313&PIpi=8024493 (R) Jaquelene Drinkall page 41 - Repository: Blue Mountains City Library bmcc.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/default/ Part of: Local Studies Collection page 44 - Graphic image - Racket

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